IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Up all night for climate in the U.S. Senate; Alaska's iconic Iditarod race struggles without snow; California breaks solar power records; PLUS: 3rd anniversary of the meltdown at Fukushima, and the legacy of nuclear disaster ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climatologist who predicted California drought 10 years ago says it may soon be ‘even more dire’; Daylight Savings Time could be costing billions yearly in electricity; Canadian tar sands oil gets new route across US; IEA: wind and solar can carry bulk of energy transformation; New ozone-depleting gases found in atmosphere; Get ready for El Nino...maybe; What slowdown? NASA says long-term warming likely to be significant; Duke CEO: All customers to pay for coal ash cleanup ... PLUS: 'Pollution burden' much higher for California's minority populations ... and much, MUCH more! ...

In the tense days after a powerful earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on March 11, 2011, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission made a concerted effort to play down the risk of earthquakes and tsunamis to America’s aging nuclear plants, according to thousands of internal emails reviewed by NBC News.

Climate caucus members say their objective is to raise the urgency of global warming and build toward a time when the political landscape may have shifted enough that a bill could pass. They argue that there are signs that the political winds may already be changing.

That conventional wisdom of climate change as a dead weight issue is challenged by a Stanford University study based on the 2010 congressional elections, which found Americans voted, at least in part, on candidates' climate change positions.

All this isn’t “proof” that human caused climate change helped shift and reduce precipitation in California during its record-setting drought. But a prediction this accurate can’t be ignored, either, especially because of its implications for the future.

The main finding? Daylight Saving Time actually increases electricity demand, instead of lessening it. DST caused electrical demand to rise almost 1 percent each year overall--with a much heavier increase of 2-4 percent in the fall, when residents "fall back" an hour.

Canada’s energy producers received a rare boost in their efforts to expand the market for oil sands bitumen on Thursday when the country’s National Energy Board approved the reversal of a Canadian pipeline.

Scientists have found four new ozone-destroying gases in the atmosphere, most likely put there by humans in the last 50 years, despite a ban on these dangerous compounds." AFP had the story March 10, 2014.

For West Coasters sick of the ridiculously resilient ridge of high pressure and East Coasters tired of hearing about the polar vortex, get ready for a new climate phenomenon to dominate headlines. El Niño could be making a return this fall after a 4-year hiatus, changing rainfall and temperature patterns across the world. It could even boost the odds of 2014 being the globe’s hottest year on record.

But ultimately the volume of gas the U.S. could export is relatively small, and is unlikely to alter the current energy markets over which Russia holds so much sway...A more solid reason to support more U.S. energy exports is money, and it's no surprise that the loudest calls are coming from energy producing states.

A report due to be released Tuesday aims to offer an object lesson to President Barack Obama: Free trade deals have high costs in unintended consequences for the environment, people's way of life, and local sovereignty.

Duke Energy's CEO says while the company and its shareholders will pay to clean up a coal ash spill in the Dan River, its customers will shoulder the costs of closing the rest of the utility's coal ash ponds across North Carolina.

Pollution is ‘‘nature’s red-light warning against the model of inefficient and blind development,’’ Li said today in his work report at the start of this year’s National People’s Congress in Beijing. ‘‘Fostering a sound ecological environment is vital for people’s lives and the future of our nation.”

These days the data tell a powerful story. Recent price declines for solar energy have been "massive," [Ethan Zindler, Bloomberg New Energy Finance] explained, while merely "substantial" for wind, meaning that a global shift away from fossil fuels is no longer "theoretical."